History of the world war
(With Illustrations) World War, 1914-1918.
Excerpt from the introduction:
The World War, entering its thirty-fourth month, as these lines are written, has had three distinct phases, both on the military side and on the larger and more significant human side.
The three military phases are supplied by the Marne campaign and its immediate consequences; the Russian campaign, with its Balkan episode and its Verdun ending; the Allied offensive in the west, which began at the Somme in July 1916, and is still proceeding before Arras and along the old Aisne battlefield. In the Marne campaign, Germany sought a complete triumph by a swift and terrible thrust at France, the only one of her foes that in any sense prepared for war.
Her thrust was parried at the Marne and permanently blocked at the Yser and at Ypres. Thereafter she had to turn east and restore the failing fortunes of Austria and protect her own imperilled marches. In the Russian campaign, Germany sought to dispose of Russia, as she had endeavoured to dispose of France in the Marne campaign. Immediate success escaped her in this field. Despite terrible defeats and long retreats, Russian resistance was not broken, although the Russian Revolution, now the main factor on the eastern front and unmistakably a consequence of Russian defeat, gives to the German campaign of 1915 a value that was not perceived at the time.
What the permanent value will remain problematic. But as she had to turn east, with her western task incomplete in 1914, Germany had, after a brief and glorious campaign on behalf of her Turkish ally, to return west in February 1916, and seek at Verdun what she had not attained on the Marne. Her failure there cost her the initiative and condemned her to the defensive.
The campaign which opened at the Somme is still proceeding. Since they began their attack on July I, 1916, the Allies have steadily, if only slowly, pushed the Germans back and the recent victory of Arras demonstrates that the British army has at last reached a high state of efficiency, while there are signs, far from conclusive to be sure, of a decline in German morale.
At all events, the Germans remain on the defensive and the end of this third phase has not come. Looking now to the broader horizon, it will be perceived that here, too, there are three aspects. In its inception, in the first months of battle, the conflict still seemed to men, not alone of neutral nations but of involved nations, one more war, greater and more terrible than all past wars, but a war comparable to them in origin and purpose.
But as the struggle progressed, it brought more and more clearly to the eyes of men of all nations, save those of Central Europe, the truth that the German attack was something more than a bid for world power; comparable with that of France under Napoleon or Louis XIV, of Spain under Charles V. It became clear that Germany was not attacking armies or nations alone, but also the whole fabric of our common civilization and all the precepts and doctrines of humanity, which represent the slow progress upward from barbarism. The invasion of Belgium shocked the whole world. The crimes committed by German soldiers in Belgium and northern France, crimes not belonging to the order of excesses incident to war, but crimes ordered by commanding officers for the deliberate purpose of terrifying a helpless population and disarming men by the brutality practised upon women and children, these slowly but surely inclined the balance of neutral opinion against Germany.
At first, these brutal and bestial crimes only gave new heart and a new determination to the nations directly assailed, but in the end, they earned for Germany the condemnation of neutral nations the world over.
Contents of the volumes
v. 1. The attack on France.--v. 2. The making of middle Europe.--v. 3. Verdun and the Somme.--v. 4. America and Russia.--v. 5. The victory of the armistice
Publisher :
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & NEW YORK COMPANY 1919
Download a 99 MB zip file containing 5 Volumes
